


May Every Storm Fade

by anony_mouse



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Backstory, Flashbacks, Gen, How Do I Tag, Jack and Gabi can be read as platonic or not, Kinda, No Beta, Post-Fall of Overwatch, Sorry Not Sorry, Whump, Wilderness Survival, blizzard, hah. im funny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 14:14:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14522382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anony_mouse/pseuds/anony_mouse
Summary: Likely, even if he struck out now and managed toa) not get blown off the mountainb) go in the right directionc) and travel at anything resembling a good pace in this storm, he would still die of starvation and exposure long before he found shelter."Snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood."- Andy Goldsworthy





	May Every Storm Fade

”Get clear before the storm traps you here!”

“But you-”

“I’ll be fine until this blows over, get moving!”

He could almost see their reluctance, but everyone present knew the truth. Soldier couldn’t leave the shelter of the pseudo-cave formed from ice and rock without getting blown off the mountain and the ship couldn’t get close enough to retrieve him without getting caught in the storm’s winds and crushed against the cliff.

If they hesitated much longer, the ship’s systems would ice over or the storm clouds would become unnavigable, even with the storm-tec installed.

“Mccree, get them out of here!”

He didn’t have a visual, but he could picture the gunslinger’s closed eyes and sharp nod. The two of them didn’t get on very well- old wounds and old allegiances faded slowly- but he knew that he could trust Jesse Mccree to get the kids out if nothing else.

“... Okay.”

“ _No_! Jesse, we can’t just leave him there!”

“The storm oughta blow over in two, three days. We’ll come and get ya as soon as we can get in.” The former blackwatch agent spoke as if he’d gone deaf to his teammate’s words. Jack felt his heart ache, for any number of reasons that he didn’t want to examine at the moment.

“I have about two days of rations on me, should stretch to four if I’m careful. And snow melts.” The worst drawback to the SEP program- an increased need for sustenance that was very inconvenient at times like this.

“Good luck.” His voice was solemn and oddly respectful.

“No, Jesse, we ca-” Jack heard a click as Mccree disconnected the line and felt twin waves of relief and hopelessness crash over him. He knew that Mccree knew SEP’s higher caloric intake, and if the storm lasted more than three days- a fairly common occurrence up here- they both know his body would go into shutdown pretty quickly.

There was an old military base around here somewhere, but with the storm obscuring most sensors, he had no way to know where it was or how far. Likely, even if he struck out now and managed to a) not get blown off the mountain b) go in the right direction c) and travel at anything resembling a good pace in this storm, he would still die of starvation and exposure long before he found shelter. And that was assuming that the base wasn’t buried by the elements or made inaccessible due to old lock-down protocols.

Well, there was little use dwelling on it now. Best to settle down and prep for the long haul.

A few hours later (according to his visor) the wind was still howling strong and Jack had dug himself a den of sorts from the heavy snow he was sitting in. If the wind turned (unlikely, considering the nearby cliff face) or the temperature dropped any lower, he would have something of a buffer to last him. Dragging his kit down with him into his den, he curled up tight and set an alarm on his visor for a nap. Honestly, he should probably eat, but he wasn’t hungry enough just yet to justify rations at the moment. Instead, he drank a bit from his water bottle and replaced the water with snow, tucking it under his body to melt before curling up tight to sleep.

…  
  
_“I told you this was a terrible idea.”_

_“It’ll be fun, come on. If you hang on that wall all day, you’ll just be bored and boring and no one wants to be boring!” Jack watches his sister and her friend glide away from him, racing each other across the ice to circle back around to him. He contemplates sliding after them, but the terrifying wobble in his legs is back and he decides to grip the wall all the tighter instead._

_He is so focused on staying upright that he never hears the two of them scrape to a stop behind him, giggling and breathless. He does feel their hands under his arms as they pry him from the wall and drag him to center-rink, feet at exactly the right height to skate along- or flail ineffectively as the case may be._

_“Hey!”_

_“All you have to do to start is wobble your feet, like we showed you. You just have to get back to the wall by yourself.”_

_“JESSICA!”_

_“Can’t hear you! I believe you can do it!” He can’t lunge forward to catch her as she and Naomi push away without unbalancing himself, so he reassures himself that he will get her back later. When he can stand upright without his spinning out from beneath him._

_Okay. He can do this. He has too- Jessica can and will leave him here until someone else shows up to help him off._  
  
…

The first two days were difficult, but not impossible. Jack fortified his den and contemplated the cost-benefit of energy conservation and boredom killing via sleep. Ana or Reinhardt would probably have known which was better- Ana had always been full of randomly useful tips and Reinhardt enjoyed treks up mountains in the snow, the lunatic. 

After the first day of crippling boredom staring out into the endless white static beyond his den and ignoring the hunger gnawing at his gut, Jack gave up and decided to sleep the second day away.

…  
  
_“Don’t you dare go in there, Jackson Andrew Morrison!”_

_Jack grins what his ma calls a wolf-grin and slips between the doors into the hall. Chuckling to himself, he quickly works to find a hiding spot in the crowded gym before realizing that the best hiding spot is probably amongst the sea of students. Bundling his scarf up higher on his face than the warmer temperatures indoors require, he weaves through the crowd until he can place a taller body between himself and the door he’d come through just as it bursts open._

_There’s a tricky moment where his uncle’s eyes seem to rest on him, but he takes a breath when they slide past. Giving himself an extra minute in the horde just to be safe, Jack slips out a side door, positive he can get back to the car before he’s caught._

_He doesn’t make it four steps out of the building when runs headlong into a tall, thin rail of a man. Shit._

_“What have I told you about being predictable, Jam?”_

_Jack grumbles good naturedly as his uncle leans over to loop an arm around Jack’s shoulders. He’s sprout up like a weed since he hit high school, but with anything shy of magical intervention, he’s likely to never match his uncle’s 6’11”. Whatever giant gene runs on his mom’s side of the family had been firmly evened out by the other half of his DNA. From what mom has said, his other DNA donor was pretty short._

_“Not to be.”_

_“That’s righ-”_

_A high pitched screaming, too long and too high to be human seems to swallow up all other sounds. Jack can see his uncle’s lips moving as they cover their ears and search for the source of the sound, but there’s no way for him to tell what’s being said._

_Suddenly, Jack goes down in a pile of limbs with the distinct sensation of having been slammed into. He hasn’t even hit the floor when the air vibrates with the crack of gunfire._  
  
…

Day three found Jack frowning out of his den, as if the force of his frown could stop the elements themselves. His chances of survival are ticking away- he’s managed to keep as warm as could be expected and has stayed well hydrated, but he’d worked his way down to his last ration and the storm seemed to be picking up if anything.

He pulled up his visor’s recording function and stared at it for a while before folding it away. There’s not much he could think to say to anyone that they don’t already know.

…  
  
_“Jam! Get your scrawny ass up here!”_

_Jack growls, swinging his legs over the bench and contemplating- not for the first time and certainly not for the last- the satisfying idea of punching his CO in his perfect jawline. Instead, he jogs obediently to the man’s side and stands to attention, gritting his teeth and hoping no one notices_

_“Don't call me that.”_

_“Ex-fucking-cuse you. I’ll call you whatever I fucking want to,_ Jam _. I give the orders here, not you.” Jack swallows a hot retort and rolls back his shoulders and extra inch to remind himself that punching officers is a very very bad idea, no matter how much they might abuse their office._

_“Sir.”_

_“Tch. You’re a soft touch, Jam.” He speaks with the same disdain one might expect from a man describing a rotten skunk carcass, “I can’t imagine what the big wig’s classified hot shot program might want with you except that maybe they’re looking for expendables. No one waiting for you at home, after all, right?”_

_Jack’s bones are creaking with how hard he’s gripping his arms behind his back. He blinks twice to wipe away the image of his house torn to shreds with Omnic ballistics and nods, not trusting his voice._

_“Well, pack your shit. I want you off my base by 1400 hours.” That’s less than half an hour away. Jack’s not even sorry at how fast he’s going to have to move if it means he’s no longer under this man’s command. But, of course, there are the details to consider._

_“Sir? Where is my transfer to?”_

_“You know what? I don’t fucking care so long as it’s not here. Heidi’s got your papers at the gate.” Jack ignores the twitch in his eye at his disregard for professionalism. He isn’t one to stand on ceremony, but there is something painfully humiliating about this careless, haphazard dismissal. Like Jack is a useless piece of trash to be thrown out the window and not the best fucking tactician in base._

_“Sir.” He bites out the word like it might bite back and leaves without waiting for a reply._

_He collects his papers from Lt. Mason with a quick, thankful farewell and drives onto the snowy roads without looking back._  
  
… 

Somewhere around day five, Jack opened his eyes to a find his den darkened by a tall silhouette crouched inches before his face.

“Ya look like shit, Morrison.” Heh. Figures.

Jack shivered and tried to pull himself into something like a sitting position. His arms don’t hold him up properly though and he slips in a wet patch of ice, falling back to a prone position.

“Your a fuckin’ mess.” What else was new?

“But that’s always how it was, wasn’t it? You made the messes and I cleaned them up.” Something unpleasant shivered down his spine and Jack finally managed to find his voice.

“S- sorry.” The figure shifted, the fuzzy outline looming in closer until Jack was forced to close his eyes so they wouldn’t cross trying to focus on it.

“What was that?”

“Sorry, G-gabi. Sorry for everything.” The silence stretched long enough that Jack cracked an eyelid to see if the shape was still there. It was, and he did his best to focus where the eyes should have been as he tried again. “S’my fault. Shoulda backed your play. Talked it out with you be-before it was too late. You were an ass, but I was an idiot.”

“Some apology, Jackie. Insultin’ me like that.”

“‘S true.”

“Heh. Yeah.” Jack could feel consciousness slip through his fingers and resigned himself to it. He opened his mouth to ask the shadow to stay, but the light faded out before he could be sure he said it.

…  
  
_“Oh hey! Happy Birthday!” Jack crowed, carefully balancing his rifle in his lap as he dug through his bag, being none to careful not to elbow his companion._

_“Shit! Watch it, Morrison!”_

_“Tsk tsk. No need to be such a fucking grump, old man. You’ve got at least another decade before people start expecting you to evict whippersnappers from your lawn.”_

_“Fuck, what tomb did you pull your jokes from? That joke was rotting before you were born.”_

_“I guess you would know.”_

_“Swear to God, Morrison-”_

_“There there, is that how you treat someone when they get you something?”_

_“What’d you get me, an elbow to the gut?”_

_“Nah. That was free.” With a victorious huff, Jack freed the flask from the bottom of his bag and brandished it in Gabi’s face. “Actual alcohol, not that rat’s piss moonshine Liam passes as such. The nice shit from that lady’s shop two towns ago.”_

_“And it’s been sitting in your bag since? Stuffs probably gone to shit.”_

_“A) like you fucking care and B) our snot’s freezing to our noses out here, you really think I need a fucking fridge for this?”_

_“Classy.”_

_“Look, if you don’t want it-”_

_“Gimme.” Jack grins as Gabriel swipes the flash from him, opens it, and takes a swig without missing a beat. “Fuck, that shit is nice.”_

_“Toldja.” Jack makes grabby hands at the flask, and pouts when Gabriel pulls away._

_“Nu-uh! This here was a gift!”_

_“To share!”_

_“That’s not how gifts work!”_

_“Jackass. I went through a lot of effort to get that.”_

_“And I appreciate it.”_

_“How ‘bout you show that appreciation by sharing, asswipe.”_

_“Pfft, in your dreams.” The two tussle for a minute, only enhanced reflexes and Gabriel’s preternatural sense of balance keeping the flask upright. It ends when Gabe stops to take another swig and Jack flicks the bottom of the flask, spilling some of its precious contents over Gabriel’s beard._

_“Hey!”_

_“Hah! You deserve it!”_

_“Some birthday, asshole!”_

_“Grouchy old men don’t get nice birthdays!”_

_“I’ll show you, fucking ‘old man’.”_

_“In your dreams.” Jack grins his challenge at Gabriel’s shocked face and pretends, for a moment that world outside this post doesn’t exist, snatching at the joy in the room like a lifeline._

_Of course, it doesn’t last. The sharp, familiar whir of machinery whistles at the edge of their hearing and with practiced ease, the flask is whisked away and both men roll up to firing positions, ready to face the oncoming wave._  
  
…

The cold and hunger had faded into the background over the last few- hours? days?- until they were hardly even there. In their place sat a heavy exhaustion, dragging at his arms and eyelids like an inexorable gravity well.

Jack was pretty sure that if he slept now, he wouldn’t wake up. It was okay. The kids would have plenty of people to keep them safe, he’d apologized to Gabi, and there were others out there fighting to stop Talon now. 

He was just so tired.

He watched idly as light danced across the ice to cast twisting shadows on the snow like a dance. It was beautiful.

Jack closed his eyes and let the darkness roll over him one last time.

**Author's Note:**

> That’s it!  
> Is the light the clearing storm? Does Overwatch find him? Was Gabriel really there? Who knows! Certainly not me.
> 
> 'Jam' is because that's what the initials I gave him spell.
> 
> The switching of tenses between scenes low key gave me a headache. I don't think I'll be doing that again anytime soon. Lemme know if you seen any mistakes.


End file.
